


we wear these scarves around our necks like nooses

by majesdane



Category: Skins (UK)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-04
Updated: 2010-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesdane/pseuds/majesdane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There, she thinks, with grim satisfaction. Proof I can destroy things too.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	we wear these scarves around our necks like nooses

the thought of this life, that's what kept me going. i had an idea of our happiness.  
\-- _the hours_ , michael cunningham

 

 

 

It's only when they press her against the bathroom walls, grungy with dirt and band stickers and permanent marker graffiti, one knee pushing up roughly between her legs, teeth biting down almost hard enough to draw blood in the space where her neck and shoulders meet, does Emily think _oh_.

They are not Naomi.

 

;;

 

She's not even quite sure why she came back in the first place. She's even less sure as to why she's _stayed_. The air in the house feels heavy, always, like it's waiting for something. It weighs her down all day, from the time when she wakes up -- her face pressed against sheets that smell like lilac-scented washing powder -- to when she stumbles back into bed, her head already throbbing, as if in preparation for the inevitable hangover she'll have the next morning.

It's the air that keeps her out at night, until two, sometimes three in the morning, when everyone but the fractured are asleep. She can see them all in her mind, couples curled up together under down comforters, their bodies interlocking neatly. It's what makes her down the rest of her vodka in one swift gulp, barely cringing from the burn, before she chucks the bottle off into the distance. The sound of the glass shattering makes her think of stars exploding in the night sky.

There, she thinks, with grim satisfaction. Proof I can destroy things too.

But, if she had to blame anyone, she'd blame her mother. For staying, that is. Her mother, with her perfect life, job, family, etc, etc, who never just _says_ Naomi's name like it's normal, but rather forces it out with a scowl, as if somehow even her name is bad. _That girl_ , her mum used to say, when she was still pretending that lesbianism was just a disease that people could catch and one day, just like that, Emily would be cured. If only they could find the right medicine. _Naomi_.

If her mum hadn't stayed, Emily wouldn't have stayed. That was the way she saw things. But her mum stayed with her dad, and just sat there in the kitchen, listening to her dad speak, Emily felt as though the universe was trying to tell her something. As if the fact that her dad had cheated on her mum was some sort of sick example for her to look at and say, Oh, maybe this is how things are meant to be then.

(As if it could _ever_ be okay again.)

She couldn't deny the fact that, also, she didn't want her mum to know she'd been right all along. That Naomi was just a walking heartache/break, that one day she'd show her true colours and everything would unravel. Like a ball of string caught in a fan, pulling it in until they're both wound up so tightly that they both break. One from pulling, the other from being pulled. She imagines this is how her mother saw them: tangled up so messily that no one could ever find a way to undo them. Emily remembers the _she's not right_ -s more than she remembers anything else, the smug tone of voice and the way her mum's lip curved up into a tight smile, as if she knew, all along, that this would happen.

As if she was just waiting for them to crash and burn, so that she could rush in and pull her daughter from the wreckage. What a hero.

 

;;

 

She keeps the note tucked into her sock and underwear drawer, which she'd acquired with a bit of force, dumping out Naomi's clothes unceremoniously onto her little corner bed, before shoving the drawer back into place and stuffing it full of her own clothes. It wasn't as if Naomi wouldn't have just given her the drawer if she asked, but it was the principle of the matter. Which is what Emily told herself. It was _their_ house. That was why she was staying. Which gave her permission to pick out which things would be hers.

She was done asking for things. The only thing left to do was to _take_.

Sometimes the note gets buried until socks and bras and knickers and Emily has to dig it out again and look at it, folding it back and forth along the crease, as if staring at it, worrying it, will somehow make the note true. _Anything_ , it says. _I'll do anything._ Emily thinks this note is a lie; the past can't be changed, so not _everything_ can be done. What she wants she can't have. And there's nothing left to want. It can't give her anything at all.

Her fingers trace along the letters, draw out the heart, which has become a bit faded over the past few months. Every day feels less and less real to her. When she lies in bed, she imagines herself floating on a raft in the middle of the ocean, drifting farther and farther away from shore. Eventually she can't see anything, just pitch-blue all around her, the sun glinting off the water like light along a knife blade. She wonders if she could just drift forever, never reaching another shore, just forever lost at sea.

Emily can't decide if she likes that idea or not.

 

;;

 

They fuck frantically, like there isn't any time left in the world (and sometimes Emily thinks there isn't). The marks they leave on each other are thin, red welts that feel like Braille to Emily under her palm later in the shower or lying in bed, trying to find the sleep that always evades her. There's nothing gentle left in them anymore, she thinks, even as she digs her nails into Naomi's shoulders as she comes with a jerk, pulling her hands away to revel in the sight of tiny, crescent-shaped wounds that fill up crimson with blood.

The horrible thing is that they can't stop completely. Naomi's touches still burn her skin like fire, make Emily's stomach twist into knots. Her kisses -- rough and unremarkable -- still cause Emily's throat to close up and make her pull Naomi in closer, legs wrapping around her waist. And it's horrible, just horrible, because once she's come she always feels sick, and the emptiness that greets her arms when Naomi slips away silently, resigned, is becoming more and more familiar.

She wishes she could fix things, but she doesn't know how.

She feels like that note in her drawer, folded up and faded. That note is a lie. It hasn't done anything that it said it would do. It hasn't fixed things, it's only made them worse. It's made the silences almost possible to bear, it's made the distances seem normal. They skirt around each other like one is a match and the other is a flame, white hot. If they ever meet, it'll start a fire.

And everything's already been burned once before.

 

;;

 

In the clubs, she can pretend.

Pretend like she's not flammable or drifting away or beginning to fade. Pretend like if she gets drunk enough, if she swallows enough pills, she'll forget the differences when the girls press up against her in clubs. Pretend like she doesn't know that they taste nothing like Naomi, who was always mint and cigarettes and sometimes sugar, around her. Pretend like the world isn't ending right in front of her, one day at a time, the earth crumbling into itself.

It's easy to ignore things when she's pissed, like how some of the girls are too skinny; when they grind up against her Emily can feel their hip bones on her skin, sharp and anxious. Demanding. Sometimes they look at her like there's something wrong. Maybe there is. Maybe she should want to fuck them in dirty club bathrooms or in the alleys next to pubs, pushing her hand up their skirts, into their knickers, stroking purposefully until they jerk against her. She wonders what they would look like, coming, if they would bite down on their lower lip, drawing her in closer with one leg wrapped around her waist.

Emily thinks about them whispering her name, as they pepper her face with kisses right after they've come, legs almost too weak to hold them up. It would be so easy, to forget. Just for a night, just for an hour or so -- minutes, even. It wouldn't be that difficult at all.

She can't do it. She doesn't know why.

 

;;

 

In her head she counts down the days to when she'll forgive Naomi.

The countdown begins at the start of every month. Thirty days, she tells herself. Thirty days and then I'll forgive her. We can move on and be happy and this -- whatever _this_ is -- can stop. But she also gives herself an out, starting all over again each month, because, well, a month isn't just enough time. Neither is two, three, even four months. The pain just doesn't go away; it sticks to her, festers like a splinter caught under her skin, hurting even when she doesn't touch it. The anger's easy. The anger just simmers down into nothingness; it still lingers below the surface, but it's less sharp now. Less hot. Less vivid.

But the pain -- the pain lingers.

Naomi's hands slipping under her top, pushing up underneath her bra, squeezing her breasts roughly, remind Emily just how angry she was. How angry she _should_ be. But they've worked themselves into such a comfortable stasis, as state of absolute nothingness, and it's hard to let that go. She remembers a poem (love is like velocity, we feel the speeding up or the slowing down, otherwise not at all) and wonders which direction anger would take them. Which direction forgiveness would take them.

She doesn't know if she even wants to find out.

 

;;

 

There's something in her that twists, when she sees Naomi, asleep on the downstairs couch, her Politics book lying face up, spine cracked wide open on her stomach, rising and falling slightly with each shallow breath. It's what compels her to move forward, take the book and set it aside, brush the hair out of Naomi's eyes and wish for tomorrow. Tomorrow always seems better. Tomorrow is one more day checked off, closer to forgiveness. Tomorrow, she always thinks. Tomorrow we will be in love again.

But tomorrow never seems to come.

And Emily doesn't know how to fix things today.


End file.
